Karol Wojtyla's philosopher -- Wojtyla's philosophical development -- Wojtyla's method -- Reason and faith in the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla/John -- Experience and knowledge -- Truth about the human person -- The challenge of nihilism -- The anthropology of person and act -- Introduction to Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology -- Main principles of person and act -- Consciousness and operativity -- Transcendence -- Integration -- Participation.
Summary:
An important milestone of twentieth-century philosophy was the rise of personalism. After the crimes and atrocities against millions of human beings committed in two world wars, especially in the Second World War, some philosophers and other thinkers, in an effort to expose and denounce the folly of political strucutres that violate the inalienable rights of the individual person, began to seek arguments showing the value of each human being. Karol Wojtyła appeals to the ancient concept of "person" to emphasize the particular value of each human being. Persons are unique because of their subjectivity by which they possess an unrepeatable interior world. Their rational nature grants them a special character among living beings, among which is the transcendence to the infinite. Wojtyła magisterially shows how each human being's personhood is rooted in a conscious and free subjectivity, marked by personal and social responsibility. Wojtyła's original philosophical analysis takes for its starting point the human act, in which consciousness and experience consolidate voluntary choices, which are objectively efficacious. By acts, the person determines personhood. This self-dominion enables people to live together in a community in which one's neighbors can be companions on the voyage of life. This work provides a clear guide to Karol Wojtyła's principal philosophical work, Person and Act, rigorously analyzing the meaning that the author intended in his exposition. Importantly, the authors rely on the original Polish text, Osoba i czyn, as well as the best translations into English and Spanish, rather than on a flawed and sometimes misleading English edition of the work. Besides the analysis of Wojtyła's masterwork, this volume offers three chapters examining the impact of Wojtyła's anthropology on the relationship between faith and reason. -- from dust jacket.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.